Hudson -- Out of Gas
Out of Gas
Farout, 1994
Fifteen years after its release, Hudson's "Out of Gas" EP sounds woefully dated. Like quite a few of their contemporaries, Hudson played a rather generic brand of melodic hardcore that, at its best, evoked Wig Out at Denko's-era Dag Nasty. At its worst, it could come across as a sloppy aural vessel for immature sloganeering. At its most mediocre -- and Hudson falls squarely into this category -- it sounded like a talented group of people rushing into the studio a bit prematurely, struggling to play music before having codified their sonic signature. In other words, "Out of Gas" comes apart at the seams. While the band tends to stick to their hardcore template, their excursions into poppier riffs and melodic vocalization do not always work and, as a result of these poorly incorporated elements, the end product sounds less like a hybridized fusion of compatible genres than an unfinished pastiche. This is not to say that there are not some really good moments on the record, but neither are there any standout tracks. The least interesting of the lot, a cover of Generation X's "Dancing With Myself," could have salvaged the record had the band put a bit more effort into transforming the track into a hardcore version of a '77 Britpunk classic. Instead, it sounds stale and almost hesitant, as if the band can't decide whether or not they like the original. Sprinkled with the obligatory audio clips lifted from movies (in this case, Reservoir Dogs, Sixteen Candles, and Strange Brew), "Out of Gas" is about as average a disk as you could ask for. Not bad, certainly. But neither do you have to worry about getting songs stuck in your head.
Sobriquet Grade: 72 (C-).
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